If the virus were to amplify itself in the urban population of Lagos, the city could erupt in a viral equivalent of a nuclear detonation. Sawyer had close contacts with seventy people while he was dying in Nigeria, any of whom could have caught the virus from him and spread it to others. Fast, decisive action by Nigerian health authorities and foreign doctors managed to break the chains of infection that had started traveling out of Patrick Sawyer. Dr. Stella Adadevoh, who had prevented Sawyer from leaving the hospital, died of Ebola afterward; she is now regarded as a national hero for
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